Labor-power a Commodity
Free trade—free competition in buying and selling commodities—is the basic principle of the Capitalist system of exchange of private property, and it is but natural that the labor-power of the working class should also be regarded as a commodity. In fact it is inevitable that, under a system of production for PROFIT, labor-power should take on such a character and that it should be bought and sold in the open market according to the law of supply and demand of commodities. Nor is it surprising that in a competitive market, where the seller with the greatest necessity for cash fixes the market price, the price of labor-power should always tend to sink to the level of a bare subsistence for the workers; and that those workers with the ability to exist at the lowest standard of living should dictate the terms on which the others may also continue to exist. The whole tendency of the wage system has been to drag all the workers down to the same dead level of poverty. The fact that a certain portion of them still manage to maintain a comparatively decent standard of living is due to certain conditions which Capitalism has not as yet been able to overcome, and not to any intelligently applied powers of resistance inherent in that portion of the working class.
The Skilled Workman
Up to recent times the specialized skill of the craftsman protected him in a large measure against material reductions in his standard of living and, as he regarded his skill as a PROPERTY, he naturally accepted the capitalist property notions and attempted to apply them to the crafts. His Craft was his capital—the means of his life—and any raise in its position benefited him. Anything that threatened the existence of his skill, or his exclusive possession of that skill, threatened him. Therefore he joined his fellows in the organization of
